Principal Software Engineer
Microsoft · Posted Oct 27
Software, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and hardware services
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About the role
The Azure App Testing team in Core AI provides cloud-scale testing capabilities that help developers validate the reliability, performance, and quality of modern applications, including Azure Load Testing for performance testing and Playwright Workspaces for managed, cloud-hosted browser automation. The platform is being extended to agentic and AI workloads. This hands-on principal individual contributor role leads architecture and implementation of distributed, multi-tenant testing services and raises engineering standards through technical leadership and mentorship.
What you will do
- Define and evolve the architecture of distributed, multi-tenant testing services, balancing reliability, performance, security, operability, and cost.
- Lead complex initiatives from design and prototyping through implementation, rollout, and sustained operation, while remaining hands-on in coding and deeply engaged in design and code reviews.
- Build scalable execution and orchestration capabilities for load testing and managed browser automation, including scheduling, concurrency, isolation, and resilient failure handling.
- Shape developer-friendly APIs, tooling, and CI/CD integrations that make testing a natural part of development and release workflows.
- Advance AI-assisted testing with rigorous evaluation, observable behaviour, appropriate safeguards, and meaningful measures of quality and customer value.
- Drive live-site excellence through actionable telemetry, service-level objectives, incident response, root-cause analysis, and prevention of recurring issues; participate in the team’s on-call rotation.
- Embed security, privacy, accessibility, and responsible AI into design and delivery, including identity, access control, and protection of customer test data.
- Partner with product managers, engineers, architects, security teams, and customers to set priorities, align architecture, resolve dependencies, and deliver cohesive platform capabilities.
- Mentor engineers, foster inclusive technical discussions, and improve engineering practices for testing, deployment safety, serviceability, and developer productivity.
Skills used in this role
What the employer is looking for
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
- 10+ years of extensive experience designing, building, and operating production software, with demonstrated technical leadership on complex initiatives spanning multiple components or teams.
- Strong software engineering skills in one or more languages such as C#, Java, C++, Go, Python, or TypeScript, including maintainable design, automated testing, and effective code review.
- Deep understanding of distributed systems, service architecture, API design, concurrency, fault tolerance, and performance engineering.
- Experience operating cloud services and diagnosing complex production issues using telemetry, debugging, and structured root-cause analysis.
- Ability to lead through influence, explain architectural trade-offs, collaborate across disciplines, and mentor engineers.
- A customer-focused approach and commitment to secure, reliable, inclusive engineering.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with Azure or comparable cloud platforms, containerised workloads, Kubernetes, and multi-tenant service infrastructure.
- Experience with browser automation or end-to-end testing using Playwright, and performance testing using JMeter, Locust, or comparable frameworks.
- Experience building developer platforms, SDKs, command-line tools, or integrations with GitHub, Azure DevOps, and CI/CD systems.
- Experience improving cloud resource efficiency, execution scheduling, service scalability, and infrastructure cost.
- Experience with AI-assisted developer tools or agentic workflows, including evaluation, reliability, and responsible AI practices.
- Experience collaborating with open-source communities or building services on open-source technologies.
Benefits and support
- Compensation and benefits are detailed in the job posting
About Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is a multinational technology company that develops, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products, services, and hardware devices. Best known for its Windows operating systems, Microsoft 365 productivity suite, and Xbox gaming consoles, the company has expanded heavily into enterprise cloud computing via Azure and advanced artificial intelligence solutions. As one of the world's most valuable public enterprises, it empowers individuals and businesses globally through innovative digital transformation.
- Industry
- Software
- Company size
- 228,000+ employees
- Founded
- April 4, 1975
- Location
- Redmond, Washington, USA
- Funding stage
- Public Company
Leadership
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer
Vice Chair and President
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